A Travel & Culture Blog For People Who Hate Tourists

Month: March 2017

In this week’s edition of social media outrage over nothing, I’m sure you read that two teenager girls were told to wear something over their leggings before boarding a United Airlines flights. As a result, everybody, talk show hosts and celebrities felt need to weight in because that’s what we do.

As someone who use to work in public relations, the PR crew for United must be putting in some massive overtime. All this because some dumbass saw it going down at the gate and felt the need to express her displeasure on Twitter. Lady, just board the damn plane.

“I don’t get why that’s the issue here,” she told CNBC. “A dress code still shouldn’t be gendered and sexist. To be clear, this was happening very publicly right here in the gate.” What a hero.

Not everything that happens in life has to be made into an international incident. Remember the BBC interview where the baby interrupts? That was hilarious, until people had to berate other people and cry racism for assuming that the Asian women was the nanny, when she was the mother. Please.

Then my reaction to United’s policy that those using employee passes should abide by a dress code — fine. It’s their airline, they can do what they want. If you don’t like it, start your own airline. Then networks had to do retrospective on how people use to dress up to travel and now people wear their pajamas.

This will thankfully fall out of the news cycle in a couple of days, then social media will find something else to be outraged over. In the meantime, get off Twitter and enjoy the flight.

Going into a wider release in the U.S. this weekend was director Danny Boyle’s reunion of the beloved characters from Trainspotting. In T2: Trainspotting, Renton, played by Ewan McGregor, returns to the scene of the action in Edinburgh, Scotland.

It’s been twenty years since Renton and Spud ran down Princes Street, the city’s main shopping area. Now, it’s filled with Boots drug stores, Orange Wireless, Costa Coffee, H&M and a Build-a -Bear workshop. Strikingly enough, as Renton discovers, a modern tram system whizzes through the cobblestone streets now.

While the original, like the Irving Welsh novel, was set in Edinburgh, the movie was mostly filmed on sound stages and locations in Glasgow. The sequel makes better use of the main city to show how much has changed.

The iconic Arthur’s Seat, the flattop hill that overlooks the city, is used prominently in the scene where Spud and Renton sit at the apex to discuss how to channel their drug addiction into something else. For Renton, it’s physical fitness.

The plot of the film revolves around Renton and Simon (aka Sickboy) starting a brothel. To get funds for what they call a “bed & breakfast,” they petition the local government to give them funds. This scenes takes place at the modernist Scottish Parliament building located at the end of the Royal Mile just before you get to Holyrood Palace. The Parliament was designed by Enric Miralles and it’s one of the most striking designs you’ll see in all of the city. Most of the designs were inspired by Gaudi’s work in Barcelona.

For more modern interiors, the scene where Renton recites an updated “Choose Life” monologue takes place at the Harvey Nichols department store’s Forth Floor restaurant. While he chooses life, he can also choose from pan-fried chicken breasts, roasted cod rib-eye steak.

The nightclub scene where Renton and Simon belt out Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” takes place at the long-running nightclub The Cav. Eventually, Begbie finds Renton in the bathroom and chases him out onto the streets of Edinburgh for more familiar surroundings. It acts like a review of all the places to visit in town like The Royal Mile, the Greenmarket and Cockburn Street.

More of the grittier scenes in slums and council housing was filmed in Glasgow. The main location of Simon’s bar, Port Sunshine, was the Douglas Hotel in Clydebank area of the city. The funniest scene in the more, which I won’t spoil, happens in The Orb, which is located east of the city in the town of Bellshill.

As you’ve read, electronic devices bigger than a smartphone will be bared coming into the United States and United Kingdom from certain country’s airports.

The airports are as follows:

Mohammed V International, Casablanca, Morocco

Ataturk Airport, Istanbul, Turkey

Cairo International Airport, Egypt

Queen Alia International, Amman, Jordan

King Abdulaziz International, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

King Khalid International, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Kuwait International Airport

Hamad International, Doha, Qatar

Abu Dhabi International, United Arab Emirates

Dubai International, United Arab Emirates

My first confusion is about Morocco. There are other airports in Morocco, mainly the second busiest airport in the country in Marrakesh. There are EasyJet flights in and out that go to London. A quick Kayak search shows that. Presumably, that’s cool to travel with laptops. Then there’s Fez and Agadir.

My next confusion is that what if you’re coming home to the U.S. from Dubai with your laptop in your carry-on but you have a connection/layover in another European city like Frankfurt. Is that okay?

I bring this up because I’ve flown in and out of the Dubai, Ataturk and Mohammad V airport with my laptop on me but not directly from New York or London. Would I be singled out because I have a U.S. passport?

What I get is that laptops can conceal explosives, but in actuality, this is all more “security theater” nonsense.

The airlines are not please.

“After all, if these devices are viewed by the United States and the United Kingdom as potential instruments of threat, they can be loaded on any airplane anywhere. To suggest that Dubai doesn’t have the equal capabilities or better than the Europeans, the Americans and the Asians in terms of search, interdiction and surveillance, I find amazing,” said Emirates president Tim Clark to CNNMoney. “I know this airport.” The rich white guy has a point.

The end result, no blogging on laptops on long, direct flights from the Middle East for me. It will have to be done on my phone. COME ON!

Here’s an update on my first three months using the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the Cadillac of travel credit cards. As you remember, Chase introduced the card with a 100,000 bonus sign-up that became too popular, so they reduced it 50,000. I got in on the deal before the reduction.

To get the 100,000, I had to spend $4000 in the first three months. I got it at the two months mark. I used to pay my monthly bills like phone, cable, internet, car insurance, NY Times subscription and Netlix.

Then using Plastiq, I paid my rent. Depending on your amount, they charge you a small fee. Mine was about $44. When you think of the miles you get out of it, the fee is worth it. You can also use it to pay your mortgage or your taxes.

A few things you might not realize about the card. Yes, the $450 is pretty steep for a travel card. My Virgin Atlantic and Barclay Card are both $95 a year, but free for the first year. Not the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you get hit with the fee up front.

That is offset by the $300 travel refund. The good news is that public transportation, tolls and parking counts as travel. I changed my automatic top-up for New York/New Jersey transport and EZPass and got the credit on it.

Then there’s the shopping portal when you earn extra miles on online shopping if you click through their site. Basically, a cookie and tracking URL is embedded in your browser and when you check out, the retailer can see where you came from and credit you with the miles.

I used it to buy sneakers via Shoebuy for 6 miles per dollar. So $52.99 x 6 is 474 miles, with 52 miles on my card equals 526 added miles to my balance. My total miles balance after two months is 107,489.

Thus, the card is worth it, even with the now 50,000 redemption. I haven’t used it book travel yet or the other perks like TSA pre-check (which I already have) and Global Pass (which I already have), or the lounge access.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day on Friday. For some, it’s St. Patrick’s Week. For some, St. Patrick’s Day is everyday.

The U.S. invented holiday that honors Irish tradition is a reminder that there’s no substitution for the real thing in Ireland. A few Guinness bar signs, brass fixtures, a snug, fish ‘n’ chips on the menu and jukebox playing “Shipping Off to Boston” do not make an Irish pub.

It’s location, location, location. Plus, the people being nice also helps.

Last year, I wrote a series of posts about Angela’s Ashes author Frank McCourt’s 12 favorite pubs in Dublin that have historical significance. I managed to visit 9 of the 12 in four days. Come on, there’s only so much you fit in when you really want craft beer.

In any event, here are links to those posts for your consideration and travel planning. Drink and travel responsibly, my friends.

Tourism bureaus and travel professionals that represent destination have a particular image they want to portray. You’ll see ads, website and print materials of young, well-to-do, intelligent and diverse people smiling, laughing and having a good time.

Then there’s the harsh reality of the people who go to these destinations. Never is the gap so wide when it comes to casinos and major gambling destinations.

There are two scenes in movies that come to mind. There’s Swingers when Vince Vaughn and Jon Faveau head to Las Vegas in suits and looking “money.” They head to an old school casino on Fremont St. where they are surrounded by senior citizens. The other is Martin Scorsese’s Casino, where Robert De Niro’s character explains how the mob lost hold of the gambling mecca and the corporations took over to make it more like an amusement park. There’s a shot in slow motion of a herd of senior citizens using walkers and canes walking through the casino doors.

That was the 90s. Today, it’s not better. The dealers and slot machines have been replaced by arcade-style games and artificial intelligence, which I’m sure is fair, on the level and not prone to hacking or manipulation by the casino owners what so ever.

Joining the elderly are people gambling away their disability check, families shopping at the outlet malls (which are a scam all its own), bros douching it up with other bros, the girls out on the lamest girls weekend ever and the riff-raff of society. The only people wearing suits to the casinos that are not workers are the old timers complaining how things aren’t what they use to be.

While Las Vegas has done a great job of creating a city where there are plenty of things to do besides gambling, other cities — not so much. I had to go to Atlantic City over the weekend, and it was shocking how sad it looked. The city (motto: The Reno of the East) has been on the verge of bankruptcy for almost a decade.

Walking through a casino didn’t inspire me to take a chance on the Wonder Woman or Britney Spears slots. It made me depressed. This is not an exaggeration — I saw row upon row of disabled people on motor scooters on the slots. I saw mostly old and destitute people with a dead-eye stare hitting a button and watching the screen light up with random in computerized patterns. For a detailed look at how these machines gives you the illusion of wining which leads to addiction, read this Atlantic cover story.

Outside the casino, it was more pockets of people wondering around and seeing what else there is to do, which is nothing because it’s the winter outside and windy. The action in the bar area consisted of groups of post-college aged boys and girls playing beer pong. Now that’s classy.

“A casino is not like a movie theater or a sports stadium, offering a time-limited amusement. It is designed to be an all-absorbing environment that does not release its customers until they have exhausted their money.” — A Good Way to Wreck a Local Economy: Build Casinos

Basically, casinos are the anti-travel, you are meant to go nowhere.

The last time I gambled was in Hong Kong at the Happy Valley Race Course and Macau. While Macau is 3 times the revenue of Las Vegas, it lies somewhere between Las Vegas high-caliber entertainment and Altantic City’s level of desperation. There’s one casino near Old Macau, while the bulk of the hotel casinos are few miles away.

I won $10 total with the horses and $90 (720 pataca) in Macau on my second spin of a slot. I figure stop while I was ahead. Plus, if I converted to HK or US dollars I would have to pay a fee, so I spent it right there on drinks, egg tarts, fancy socks and a cab ride back to the speed boat.

In all, gambling is a tax on stupidity. Casinos are a temporary fix to bring in tourists and low income jobs. Building arts and culture that benefits locals and brings in travelers to experience the local flavor is what’s sustainable.